By 1851, the year of the great Crystal Palace Exhibition, Britain had clearly passed the point of no return in the process of industrialization. This much was obvious to contemporaries and has been accepted since by economic historians, though the latter interpret it in different ways. According to Clapham, ‘the course was set towards the “industry state” but the voyage was not half over’. According to the Rostow ‘stages of growth’ model this was approximately the date at which Britain reached ‘maturity’, and had, by definition,

It is generally agreed, then, that Britain had been through an industrial revolution by the middle of the nineteenth century, though the revolution had by no means worked itself out. What did this imply? What were the significant changes that had taken place in the economy since the middle of the nineteenth century? How far had it got on the route to today's modern industrial economy?